Fish on Prozac become angry, aggressive and KILL their mates, new study finds

Daily Mail

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that minnows administered Prozac became aggressive, anti-social and sometimes homicidal. But why put a fish on Prozac? It's not a fix for sad fish - rather, human medications are ending up in waterways and creating ecological effects scientists are only just beginning to research.

Anti-depressant drugs are the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S. -  about 250 million prescriptions are filled every year. They're also the most-documented drugs contaminating waterways.

Traces of the drugs typically get into the water when people excrete them. Sewage treatment plants discharge the filtered effluent, but most aren't equipped to filter out the drugs.

The scientists wanted to study the effects of this drug exposure, and chose the fathead minnow, a fish common fish in Midwest waterways, as their subject. Rebecca Klaper, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Great Lakes Water Institute, presented results of the study at the meeting of the North American division of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Long Beach, California.

Fathead minnows usually display complex mating behavior, with males building the nests where females comes to lay their eggs. After they're laid, the males fertilize them and keep watch, cleaning away fungus and dead eggs.

Klaper said that the fluoxetine, the active ingredient in Prozac, was given in very low concentrations - 1 part per billion - which is the same as that found in waste water discharged into waterways.

The male of the species spent more time hiding alone, hunting and ignoring females.

Female fathead minnows seem to be unaffected by the chemical except for producing fewer eggs.

When the concentration of fluoxetine was increased to the highest levels found in waterways, male minnows started to spend more time building their nests. Scientists increased the dose tenfold, in an effort to see what might happen in our waterways in the future, and the males 'become obsessive, to the point they're ignoring the females', Klaper said.



When fluoxetine concentrations are increased again, fathead minnows stop reproducing all together and turn violent: 'The males start killing the females,' said Klaper.

Strangely, if the females are introduced a month after the males are exposed to the chemical, the males don't show aggressive behavior towards them - but the females still don’t lay any eggs. The research has shown that exposure to the drug can alter the genes responsible for building fish brains and controlling their behavior.

The drugs seem to cause these changes in behavior by scrambling how genes in the fishes' brains are turned on and off. The minnows were exposed when they were a couple of months old and still developing.



Klaper said there appeared to be 'architectural' changes to the young minnows’ brains.

'At high doses we expect brain changes,' Klaper told the conference. 'But we saw the gene expression changes and then behavioral changes at doses that we consider environmentally relevant.'

These new findings build on Klaper’s previous research, which tested minnows exposed to the drug to see how they dealt with predators. The fish swam longer distances and made more directional changes, which suggests that the drugs induced anxiety.

It is unclear whether any of these effects are being felt by wild fish populations, but Klaper said that any changes in reproduction, eating and avoiding prey can have devastating impacts for fish populations. The most vulnerable fish populations are those downstream of sewage treatment plants, where prescription drugs consistently show up in higher levels than in other waterways.

Steve Carr, supervisor of the chemistry research group at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts told Environmental Health News that in the past decade technology has allowed plants to test for chemicals in their waste water and in waters downstream - but most don't.

Studies have shown that drugs can build up in some fishes' systems, meaning the drug levels could accumulate in fish the longer they are exposed to even low concentrations.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers pharmaceuticals an 'emerging concern,' and that chemicals from prescription drugs may pose risks to wildlife and humans, but there are no federal regulations in place as yet.  While traces of prescription drugs in drinking water is 'unlikely to pose risks to human health' according to the World Health Organization, we are discovering that the effects on wildlife could be serious.

'Fish do not metabolize drugs like we do,' Klaper said. 'Even if environmental doses aren’t thought to be much for a human, fish could still have significant accumulation, and, it appears, changes in their brain’s gene expression.'

New study reveals how glyphosate in Monsanto's Roundup inhibits natural detoxification in human cells

Natural News
by Lance Devon

The modern age of industrial agriculture and manufacturing has dumped heavy metals, carninogens, plastics, and pesticides into the environment at alarming rates. These toxins are showing up in most human tissue cells today. One distinct chemical may be trapping these toxins in human cells, limiting the human body's ability to detoxify its own cells. In a new peer reviewed study, this sinister chemical, glyphosate, has been proven to inhibit the human cell's ability to detoxify altogether. Glyphosate, found in Monsanto's Roundup, is being deemed by publishers of the new study "one of the most dangerous chemicals" being unleashed into the environment today.

Download the PDF of the study here.

How glyphosate destroys human cells

Glyphosate, most commonly found in conventional sugar, corn, soy and wheat products, throws off the cytochrome P450 gene pathway, inhibiting enzyme production in the body. CYP enzymes play a crucial role in detoxifying xenobiotics, which include drugs, carcinogens, and pesticides. By inhibiting this natural detoxification process, glyphosate systematically enhances the damaging effects of other environmental toxins that get in the body. This, in turn, disrupts homeostasis, increases inflammation, and leads to a slow deconstruction of the cellular system. Toxins build up in the gut over time and break down through the intestinal walls, infiltrating blood, and ultimately passing through the brain/blood barrier, damaging neurological function.

Important CYP enzymes that are affected include aromatase, the enzyme that converts androgen into estrogen, 21-Hydroxylase, which creates stress hormone cortisol, and aldosterone, which regulates blood pressure.

Getting to the gut

Even as evidence mounts, Monsanto asserts that glyphosate is not harmful to humans, citing that its mechanism of action in plants (the disruption of the shikimate pathway), is not present in humans. This is not true.

The shikimate pathway, which is involved in the synthesis of the essential aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan, is present in human gut bacteria, which has a direct relationship with the human body, aiding in digestion, synthesizing vitamins, detoxifying carcinogens, and participating in immune system function.

By inhibiting the body's gut flora from performing its essential function in the human body, glyphosate heightens many health issues facing the Western world today.

These conditions include inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's disease, obesity, and even dementia and depression. Also, by restricting gut bacteria from absorbing nutrients, glyphosate voids the body of essential life-giving vitamins.

Depletion of serum tryptophan and its link to obesity

Glysophate's damaging effects on gut bacteria lead to depleted sulfate supplies in the gut, resulting in inflammatory bowel disease. As more chemicals are absorbed from the environment, alterations in body chemistry actively promote weight gain by blocking nutrient absorption. By effecting CYP enzymes in the liver, obesity incidence is compounded, impairing the body's ability to detoxify synthetics chemicals. Since serotonin is derived from tryptophan and acts an appetite suppressant, the depletion of tryptophan encourages overeating in the brain, leading to obesity.

In need of urgent, massive awakening

Authors of the new review point out that "glyphosate is likely to be pervasive in our food supply and may be the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment." Monsanto is already lashing back at these claims, calling this peer reviewed study, "bad science" and "another bogus study." What Monsanto fails to is mention that most of the studies on glyphosate's "safety" are conducted by Monsanto themselves, which is bias to the core.

The authors of this new study instead call out for more independent research to be done to validate their findings. They are concerned with glyphosate's inhibition of the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes in the body, which are hindering the body's natural detoxification ability.

There is certainly a need for more empowering education on chemicals like glyphosate. There needs to be a kind of public mass awakening that correlates Monsanto's Roundup with skull and crossbones. If anything, Americans have the right to know how their food was produced, engineered, and poisoned, and everyone should pitch in and stop using toxic glyphosate-laced Roundup at all costs

Related:   The shikimate pathway as a target for herbicides

Why Is Autism So Drastically on the Rise? An Environmental Horror Story

Alternet

by Eleanor J. Bader

If horror is your genre, environmental writer Brita Belli’s The Autism Puzzle , is the book for you. Her terrifying look at the chemicals we eat, drink and breathe is guaranteed to make your hair stand on end.

We should thank her for it.

Statistics released earlier this spring by the Centers for Disease Control revealed that one in 88 U.S. born toddlers has an autism spectral disorder—from the less severe Asperger’s Syndrome to the so-called classical form of the ailment. Worse, it’s not just a North American phenomenon; Belli also reports a 57 percent spike in Asia and Europe.

The question is why. Perhaps, some posit, medical professionals have simply become better diagnosticians and people previously labeled eccentric or developmentally disabled were in fact, autistic. Or, perhaps there’s a genetic culprit since ASD typically runs in families. Belli gives credence to both theories, but ultimately concludes that there is more to the puzzle. “If the rise in autism numbers were only due to improved diagnosis and awareness of autism among the medical community—or if the roots of the epidemic were primarily genetic—professionals would have seen an increase in adult or adolescent patients who had not been diagnosed or who had been misdiagnosed in the past,” she writes.

But they haven’t. This realization piqued Belli’s curiosity and her investigation into the relationship between environmental poisons and human health is riveting. “The idea that a toxin can cause autism is neither controversial nor speculative,” she begins. In fact, thalidomide, a medication used in the 1960s to control morning sickness in pregnant women, was tied to autism almost 20 years ago. Likewise valproic acid, used to treat bipolar disorder, misoprostol, an ulcer drug, and chlorpyrifos, an insecticide.

And that’s just the tip of the chemical iceberg. “Many other chemicals distributed far and wide across the natural world by power plant smokestacks, leaking waste sites, improper storage facilities, and outdated manufacturing processes have been proven to cause injury to developing brains,” Belli continues. More specifically, mercury, lead and polychlorinated biphenyls—also known as PCBs—along with the chemicals used to make insulation, flame retardants, electronic equipment, and plastic pose known health risks to fetal life and newborns.

Belli cites recent studies by the Environmental Working Group that discovered an average of 200 pollutants in the umbilical cord blood of infants. Among them: pesticides, perflourinated compounds, antibiotics, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers.

Belli is particularly interested in “autism clusters,” geographic areas with higher than average rates of the disorder. One such place is Brick Township, New Jersey, where 63 million gallons of septic waste were dumped into a nearby landfill between 1969 and 1979. By the time the community learned that heavy metals and volatile organic compounds had leaked from storage containers, it was too late--soil and groundwater had already become contaminated by bromoform, chloroform and chloroethylene.

Researcher Carol Reinisch tested the impact of each of these substances on clam embryos—a precursor to human trials—and found that the “chemical cocktail”--the combined impact of the three substances acting together--was far more destructive to the body than each of the chemicals acting alone. Reinisch’s research, Belli writes, “made a solid case for the fact that toxins in combination can have a unique impact on the way brains develop. It is likely not one bodily insult that’s driving up [autism] cases, but a number of contaminants and exposures acting in concert.”

That there are approximately 1,300 Superfund sites on the National Priorities List—200 of them in New Jersey, the state with the highest autism rates—should both give us pause and make us furious since we know who is responsible for fouling the air, water and soil—unscrupulous businesses. In fact, Belli reports that the corporations responsible for the lion’s share of pollution often avoid taking responsibility for their misdeeds, sometimes declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying necessary cleanup costs, at other times disappearing altogether. Many companies simply continue polluting without consequence.

Take Fairfax County, Virginia. “The EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory for the country notes that BP Products North America releases 2822 pounds of toxins per year,” Belli writes. Joining BP are the Newington Concrete Plant (171 pounds); the Sipca Securink Corporation, which makes security inks for bank notes (250 pounds); the Virginia Concrete Edsall Road Plant (154 pounds) and several petroleum and concrete operations for which pollution data were unavailable.

Unfortunately, Fairfax County is not an anomaly. In fact, Belli presents a startling statistic: 25 percent of us live within four miles of a hazardous waste site.

Are you scared yet? Me too.

Belli offers readers a few common sense—albeit limited—suggestions: Eat fresh fruit and vegetables or choose frozen over canned; avoid washing plastic in the dish washer or putting it in the microwave because chemicals like biphenyl A (BPA) can leach and contaminate food; use a French-press coffeemaker instead of one with phthalate-containing tubing; avoid Teflon, Gore-Tex and stain, grease and water-resistant materials; and steer clear of cosmetics containing triclosan, formaldehyde, toluene, dibutyl phthalate, and lead. She also suggests cleaning with white vinegar and baking soda rather than harsh chemical cleansers.

Regardless of where scientific research goes in the next few years in its conclusions on the environmental connections to autism, we are undoubtedly in an environmental crisis.

And that current environmental crisis will take more than individual action, which is why Belli believes the government needs to enforce and strengthen environmental protections. The Toxic Substances Control Act was first passed in 1976 and has remained essentially unchanged—that is, toothless--for 36 years. When the Act passed Congress it grandfathered in 62,000 chemicals, in essence giving a free pass to known toxins such as trichloroethylene and BPA. To remedy this, Senator Frank Lautenberg has introduced the Safe Chemicals Act (S. 847), which would, for the first time, require industry to provide information on the health and safety of chemicals in order for them to be introduced or remain on the market. It would further allow the EPA to take immediate action on hazardous chemicals including lead, mercury and flame retardants.

Whether passage would roll back autism levels to what they were 20 or 30 years ago is impossible to know. What is certain is this: The number of autism diagnoses is spiraling and is cause for immediate concern and immediate action. One child in 88 will soon be one adult in 88. And then?

CELL PHONES TOXIC TO HUMANS AND EARTH

Discovery News
by Tim Wall

The pollution produced by cell phones can be hard to locate, and it’s not just the fault of the iPhone 5’s much maligned map app. From production to disposal, cell phones contaminate the environment. A recent study by the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor, Michigan and ifixit.com dissected 36 different models of cell phone and found that every one of them contained at least one of the toxic elements: lead, bromine, chlorine, mercury or cadmium.

The least toxic telephone was the Motorola Citrus, whereas the dirtiest dialer was the iPhone 2G. Apple had made big improvements over the years. The iPhone 4S and 5 both ranked in the top 5 of cleanest phones.

“Even the best phones from our study are still loaded with chemical hazards,” said the research director of the Ecology Center and founder of HealthyStuff.org, where the results were published, Jeff Gearhart, in a press release.

“These chemicals, which are linked to birth defects, impaired learning and other serious health problems, have been found in soils at levels 10 to 100 times higher than background levels at e-waste recycling sites in China. We need better federal regulation of these chemicals, and we need to create incentives for the design of greener consumer electronics.”

Altogether, 1,106 individual phones were disassembled and tested by the team at ifixit.com using X-ray fluorescence, a technique that bombards an object with radiation then measures the radiation that is re-released by the object. Specific materials can be identified by the characteristic signature of radiation they re-release.

The biggest pollution and health risk from the phones comes in the mining of the minerals used in the phones, the production of the devices, and their subsequent disposal or recycling.

“We’re not making any claim that there’s any in-use exposure hazard from these mobile phones,” Gearhart told the Detroit Free Press.

The mining of some of the tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold used in cell phone production has been associated with exploitation and brutality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said Gearhart in a press release. Once the life of the phone is over, many of them are shipped to China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and the Philippines where the hands-on recycling process there exposes workers to dangerous chemicals, according to the release.

"In 2009, 2.37 million tons of electronics were ready for what the Environmental Protection Agency calls ‘end-of-life management’—code for broken, dead, outdated, and unwanted devices,” said Kyle Wiens, CEO of ifixit.com, in a press release. “Of the digital castoffs, only 25 percent made it into recycling centers. We can't allow the other 75 percent of our old electronics to become waste. All those toxins add up. E-waste is an enormous problem that can result in toxic chemicals seeping into drinking water and poisoning the environment.”

Healthystuff.org recommends the e-Stewards website for consumers looking to responsibly dispose of their cell phones and other electronics.

Higher Levels of BPA in Children and Teens Significantly Associated With Obesity

Science Daily

Researchers at NYU School of Medicine have revealed a significant association between obesity and children and adolescents with higher concentrations of urinary bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic chemical recently banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from sippy cups and baby bottles. Still, the chemical continues to be used in aluminum cans, such as those containing soda.

The study appears in the September 19 issue of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), dedicated to the theme of obesity.

“This is the first association of an environmental chemical in childhood obesity in a large, nationally representative sample,” said lead investigator Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, associate professor of pediatrics and environmental medicine. “Our findings further demonstrate the need for a broader paradigm in the way we think about the obesity epidemic. Unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity certainly contribute to increased fat mass, but the story clearly doesn’t end there.”

BPA, a low-grade estrogen, was until recently found in plastic bottles labeled with the number 7 recycling symbol, and is still used as an internal coating for aluminum cans. Manufacturers say it provides an antiseptic function, but studies have shown the chemical disrupts multiple mechanisms of human metabolism that may increase body mass. BPA exposure has also been associated with cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer, neurological disorders, diabetes and infertility.

“In the U.S. population, exposure [to BPA] is nearly ubiquitous, with 92.6 percent of persons 6 years or older identified in the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) as having detectable BPA levels in their urine. A comprehensive, cross-sectional study of dust, indoor and outdoor air, and solid and liquid food in preschool-aged children suggested that dietary sources constitute 99 percent of BPA exposure,” the investigators wrote.

Using a sample of nearly 3,000 children and adolescents, ages 6 through 19 years, randomly selected for measurement of urinary BPA concentration in the 2003-2008 NHANES, Dr. Trasande and his co-authors, Jan Blustein, MD, PhD, and Teresa Attina, MD, PhD, MPH, examined associations between urinary BPA concentrations and body mass.

After controlling for race/ethnicity, age, caregiver education, poverty to income ratio, sex, serum cotinine level, caloric intake, television watching, and urinary creatinine level, the researchers found children with the highest levels of urinary BPA had 2.6 times higher odds of being obese than those with the lowest measures of urinary BPA. Among the participants with the highest levels, 22.3 percent were obese compared with 10.3 percent of the participants with the lowest levels.

Further analyses showed this association to be statistically significant in only one racial subpopulation, white children and adolescents. The researchers also found that obesity was not associated with exposure to other environmental phenols commonly used in other consumer products, such as sunscreens and soaps.

“Most people agree the majority of BPA exposure in the United States comes from aluminum cans,” Dr. Trasande said. “This data adds to already existing concerns about BPA and further supports the call to limit exposure of BPA in this country, especially in children. Removing it from aluminum cans is probably one of the best ways we can limit exposure. There are alternatives that manufacturers can use to line aluminum cans.”

The researchers wrote in their study that advocates and policy makers have long been concerned about BPA exposure. “We note the recent FDA ban of BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups, yet our findings raise questions about exposure to BPA in consumer products used by older children. Last year, the FDA declined to ban BPA in aluminum cans and other food packaging, announcing ‘reasonable steps to reduce human exposure to BPA in the human food supply’ and noting that it will continue to consider evidence on the safety of the chemical. Carefully conducted longitudinal studies that assess the associations identified here will yield evidence many years in the future.”

LIST OF THE TOP 10 TOXIC CHEMICALS SUSPECTED TO CAUSE AUTISM AND LEARNING DISABILITIES

Science Blog

An editorial published today in the prestigious journal Environmental Health Perspectives calls for increased research to identify possible environmental causes of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in America’s children and presents a list of ten target chemicals including which are considered highly likely to contribute to these conditions.

Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, a world-renowned leader in children’s environmental health and Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center (CEHC) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, co-authored the editorial, entitled “A Research Strategy to Discover the Environmental Causes of Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities,” along with Luca Lambertini, PhD, MPH, MSc, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai and Linda Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute OF Environmental Health Sciences.

The editorial was published alongside four other papers — each suggesting a link between toxic chemicals and autism. Both the editorial and the papers originated at a conference hosted by CEHC in December 2010.

The National Academy of Sciences reports that 3 percent of all neurobehavioral disorders in children, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), are caused by toxic exposures in the environment and that another 25 percent are caused by interactions between environmental factors and genetics. But the precise environmental causes are not yet known. While genetic research has demonstrated that ASD and certain other neurodevelopmental disorders have a strong hereditary component, many believe that environmental causes may also play a role – and Mount Sinai is leading an effort to understand the role of these toxins in a condition that now affects between 400,000 and 600,000 of the 4 million children born in the United States each year.

“A large number of the chemicals in widest use have not undergone even minimal assessment of potential toxicity and this is of great concern,” says Dr. Landrigan. “Knowledge of environmental causes of neurodevelopmental disorders is critically important because they are potentially preventable.”

CEHC developed the list of ten chemicals found in consumer products that are suspected to contribute to autism and learning disabilities to guide a research strategy to discover potentially preventable environmental causes. The top ten chemicals are:

1. Lead
2. Methylmercury
3. PCBs
4. Organophosphate pesticides
5. Organochlorine pesticides
6. Endocrine disruptors
7. Automotive exhaust
8. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
9. Brominated flame retardants
10. Perfluorinated compounds

In addition to the editorial, the other four papers also call for increased research to identify the possible environmental causes of autism in America’s children. The first paper, written by a team at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, found preliminary evidence linking smoking during pregnancy to Asperger’s disorder and other forms of high-functioning autism. Two papers, written by researchers at the University of California – Davis, show that PCBs disrupt early brain development. The final paper, also by a team at UC – Davis, suggests further exploring the link between pesticide exposure and autism.

Woman Receives Anonymous Threats after Opposing Monsanto

Activist Post

After losing a 3-day old daughter to kidney failure, a woman named Sofia Gatica from Argentina made a decision to spearhead an anti-Monsanto movement with other mothers of sick children.

Monsanto is a biotechnology, agrochemical company which has been polluting the environment and human health with herbicides, pesticides, genetically modified foods, and other substances for decades. Numerous cases have been brought against Monsanto for biological damage and even death — such is the recent case in which farmers say the biotech giant’s creations spawned ‘devastating birth defects‘.

Near where Gatica lives, there are soybean fields covering the land where farmers spray loads of chemicals on the crops. The primary weed killer used on the fields is the one and only Roundup; the most popular herbicide used by farmers which contains the active ingredient glyphosate. Gatica didn’t initially connect the chemical exposure to her baby’s death until she noticed that many of her friends and neighbors were also experiencing health problems.

'I started seeing children with mouth covers, mothers with scarves wrapped around their heads to cover their baldness, due to chemotherapy…There are soybeans to the north, to the south, and to the east, and when they spray, they spray over the people because there’s no distance,' Gatica said to a Grist reporter. In fact, researchers found that people in her area had three to four agricultural chemicals in their blood, including one chemical, endosulfan, which is banned in over 80 countries.

The researchers also found that 33 percent of the residents were struck with cancer. In other previous German findings, Monsanto’s Roundup was present in all urine samples tested at an amount of 5 to 20-fold the established limit for drinking water, showing how prevalent these chemicals really are.

In retaliation to Monsanto and their highly used chemical creations, Gatica worked to create an international movement against Monsanto with other activists. A few years ago, after co-founding a group called Mothers of Ituzaingó, she and her group initiated the first epidemiological study of the area which found high rates of neurological and respiratory disease, birth defects, infant mortality, and cancer rates more than 40 times the national average. She then continued to find researchers to study the links between pesticides, herbicides, and health problems, while engaging in protests voicing concerns over the issues.

'We blockaded the spraying machines. We would get into the fields to block them. We carried out protests at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Health Ministry. We took sick people to the ministry,' she said. Over the course of a few years, mandatory buffer zones between aerial spraying and neighborhoods have been put in place thanks to the activist movement. In addition, Argentina’s Supreme Court decided that agrochemicals could not be sprayed near living areas.

However, while Gatica and other activists successfully created change, the process wasn’t necessarily easy. In fact, there were even direct threats.

"Somebody came inside my house with a weapon. I was told not to ‘screw around with the soybeans.’ I would get phone calls where I’d be told that I would only have two children the next day,” she said. “I had the police investigate this, but I was told that the file was secret,” she added after being questioned as to whether she ever found out who made the personal attacks.

Interestingly enough, previous research found that Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup exhibits direct toxicity to human cells, effectively killing them off even at low doses. The toxicity and negative impact on young children is even greater, and is most detrimental to infants or unborn babies.

Although Gatica started alone and was even directly threatened, she rose above these complications and effectively ignited change – she will not be the last.

Related stories: Monsanto's Roundup Triggers Over 40 Plant Diseases and Endangers Human and Animal Health

WEED KILLER CAN CHANGE THE SHAPES OF ANIMALS

Science Blog, Apr. 4, 2012

The world’s most popular weed killer, Roundup®, can cause amphibians to change shape, according to research published today in Ecological Applications.

Rick Relyea, University of Pittsburgh professor of biological sciences in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and director of Pitt’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, demonstrated that sublethal and environmentally relevant concentrations of Roundup® caused two species of amphibians to alter their morphology. According to Relyea, this is the first study to show that a pesticide can induce morphological changes in a vertebrate animal.

Relyea set up large outdoor water tanks that contained many of the components of natural wetlands. Some tanks contained caged predators, which emit chemicals that naturally induce changes in tadpole morphology (such as larger tails to better escape predators). After adding tadpoles to each tank, he exposed them to a range of Roundup® concentrations. After 3 weeks, the tadpoles were removed from the tanks.

“It was not surprising to see that the smell of predators in the water induced larger tadpole tails,” says Relyea. “That is a normal, adaptive response. What shocked us was that the Roundup® induced the same changes. Moreover, the combination of predators and Roundup® caused the tail changes to be twice as large.” Because tadpoles alter their body shape to match their environment, having a body shape that does not fit the environment can put the animals at a distinct disadvantage.

Predators cause tadpoles to change shape by altering the stress hormones of tadpoles, says Relyea. The similar shape changes when exposed to Roundup® suggest that Roundup® may interfere with the hormones of tadpoles and potentially many other animals.

“This discovery highlights the fact that pesticides, which are important for crop production and human health, can have unintended consequences for species that are not the pesticide’s target,” says Relyea. “Herbicides are not designed to affect animals, but we are learning that they can have a wide range of surprising effects by altering how hormones work in the bodies of animals. This is important because amphibians not only serve as a barometer of the ecosystem’s health, but also as an indicator of potential dangers to other species in the food chain, including humans.”

For two decades, Relyea has studied community ecology, evolution, disease ecology, and ecotoxicology. He has authored more than 80 scientific articles and book chapters and has presented research seminars around the world. For more information about his laboratory, visit www.pitt.edu/~relyea/.

Air pollution in Britain: state-sanctioned mass poisoning

The Guardian, Nov. 16, 2011

Successive governments have found that the simplest way to end urban poverty is to encourage poor people to live near congested roads. Apart from war and fags, nothing is more certain to shorten human life than to make people breathe a daily dose of poisons, especially sooty particles known as PM10s and nitrogen oxides that largely come from traffic and factories. The minute particles of partially burned diesel fuel and tyres travel deep into lungs and the gases trigger respiratory diseases. If you already have heart disease or asthma, then just living near a main road can be a death sentence.

In Britain, the environment audit committee has just produced a shocking report showing that 200,000 people can expect to have their lives shortened by as much as two years and everyone else have theirs curtailed by seven months for just breathing. In London alone, air pollution has been linked to nearly one in five deaths a year. This is in line with the rest of the US and Europe where last week the European Environment Agency [EEA] reported that air pollutants already lead to 500,000 premature deaths a year and are now a bigger killer than passive smoking, road traffic accidents and obesity together.

Full story

How Plastic Food Containers Could Be Making You Fat, Infertile and Sick

sott.net, Oct. 27, 2011

In previous articles here, here and here, I wrote about the dangers of an environmental toxin called bisphenol-A (BPA). BPA is a chemical that is found in several plastics and plastic additives. It's in the water bottles some folks carry to gyms, the canned tomatoes and coconut milk they cook with, and in the baby bottles moms use to feed their infants.

We've known for decades that BPA has estrogenic activity. In vivo animal studies and in vitro cell-culture research has linked low-level estrogenic activity associated with BPA exposure to all kinds of fun stuff, like diabetes, ADHD, heart disease, infertility and cancer.

There is now significant evidence suggesting that even low levels of BPA-exposure can cause harm, and this is particularly true in vulnerable populations like pregnant women, infants and the chronically ill. (1)

Full story

“Smoking Gun” Documents Show Science Ignored in Approval of Cancer-Causing Strawberry Pesticide

FederalJack.com, Aug. 25, 2011

(EARTH JUSTICE) Newly released documents show that a Schwarzenegger political appointee within the state agency that approved the cancer-causing strawberry pesticide methyl iodide favored the input of the chemical’s manufacturer, Arysta LifeScience, over the recommendations of its own scientists. The new documents—released in accordance with a court order in the California-based litigation challenging methyl iodide—show that top scientists in the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) warned of the dangers of methyl iodide and strongly criticized the methods by which the “acceptable” levels of exposure were set by DPR management.

“These smoking gun memos show that state officials cherry-picked calculations to support their preferred outcome of approving methyl iodide instead of letting science guide their decision-making,” said Susan Kegley, PhD, Consulting Scientist with Pesticide Action Network North America. “Ignoring the science and prioritizing the needs of the manufacturer has put the health and safety of Californians at great risk.”

Full story

BP disaster one year later

Aljazeera, Aug. 2, 2011

When news of the disastrous BP oil well explosion reached the residents of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana last April, Mayor Tim Kerner did the only thing he could think of to stop the oil from destroying his community. He encouraged everyone in his town to join him on the water, working day and night throughout the disaster to clean-up the spill.

Now, one year after BP managed to cap the runaway well that fouled the Gulf of Mexico with an estimated five million barrels of oil, most of those people are ill.

"I'm afraid my neighbors will come to me and say, I wouldn't have listened to you and kept my job if I knew it would kill me," Kerner said.

Kerner's story was one of many shared by Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, at a briefing Wednesday evening, the day after she led a delegation to the Gulf Coast to assess the scope of the emerging healthcare crisis in the wake of the BP drilling disaster.

"The residents are sick," Kennedy said. "They don't know what the exact cause of their illness is, but because they never suffered this way before the spill and they were all out on their fishing boats throughout the clean-up, they suspect this has something to do with the toxins."

Full story

'Four in 10' face ordeal of cancer

The Independent, July 14, 2011

Rising cancer rates mean that more than four in 10 Britons will be diagnosed with the disease at some point in their lives, according to a study by a leading health charity.

New figures obtained by Macmillan Cancer Support show that 42% of Britons who die have had cancer - compared to around 35% a decade ago.

The study, which analysed data from 2008, also revealed that 64% of cancer sufferers will eventually die from the disease.

Ciaran Devane, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: "It is really alarming that the number of people who will get cancer is now well past one in three, and that there are so many more people with cancer today than even 10 years ago."

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Modern malaise: Toxins, Rx drugs also play a role

Montreal Gazette, June 25, 2011

Leonard Sax, family physician, psychologist and author of Boys Adrift, writes that in addition to video games, teaching methods and the devaluation of masculinity, prescription drugs and environmental toxins can be held responsible.

So the parents of the boy who bounces around in class is told, often by the teacher, that he might have ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Off he goes to the doctor who prescribes the medication.

Why, asks Sax, "are boys in 2007 30 times more likely to be taking these medications compared with boys in 1987?"

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Florida Legislature Refuses to Limit Mercury in Vaccines

PRNewswire, May 9, 2011

On Friday, May 6, 2011, in Tallahassee, Florida, a Republican State Senator filed an amendment to regulate vaccines containing mercury in Florida. The amendment would have made it illegal to buy, sell, manufacture, deliver, import, administer or distribute any vaccine that contained more than 0.3 micrograms of organic or inorganic mercury per milliliter for children younger than age 7 or pregnant women. Despite support for this vaccine safety measure, the amendment was voted down.

Concern continues that mercury, in the form of Thimerosal, is still used in vaccines at all because mercury is recognized to cause cancer, genetic mutations, miscarriages and birth defects. Today, 2-phenoxyethanol, an economical, less toxic alternative to Thimerosal, has been used as a preservative in some formerly Thimerosal-preserved U.S. vaccines licensed since 2001, because of the 1999 call by the U.S. Public Health Services and the American Academy to remove Thimerosal from U.S. vaccines "as soon as possible."

This amendment would have afforded pregnant women and young children significant protection from mercury exposure through flu shots, where most doses are still Thimerosal-preserved and are routinely recommended for administration to children and pregnant women.

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Environmental Toxins Cost Billions in Childhood Disease

TIME The Healthland, May 4, 2011

Back in 2002, Philip Landrigan and a team of other researchers at Mount Sinai Medical School estimated the annual cost of four childhood conditions — lead poisoning, cancer, developmental disabilities and asthma — that could be connected to environmental factors. The numbers were surprising: Landrigan estimated that the environmental factors cost as much as $54.8 billion, or about 2.8% of total U.S. health care spending in 1997, the year the study drew from.

The conclusions were obvious — environmental pollution and toxins were a significant drag on the economy, and there was an economic case to be made for reducing childhood exposure...In a new study in Health Affairs, Trasande and Liu have included autism and attention deficit disorder in the mix, and they now estimate that environmental disease in children costs some $76.6 billion. "That's over 3% of total health care costs," says Trasande. "The environment has become a major part of childhood disease."

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Honeybees ‘entomb’ hives to protect against pesticides, say scientists

The Guardian, Apr. 4, 2011

Honeybees are taking emergency measures to protect their hives from pesticides, in an extraordinary example of the natural world adapting swiftly to our depredations, according to a prominent bee expert.

Scientists have found numerous examples of a new phenomenon – bees "entombing" or sealing up hive cells full of pollen to put them out of use, and protect the rest of the hive from their contents. The pollen stored in the sealed-up cells has been found to contain dramatically higher levels of pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals than the pollen stored in neighbouring cells, which is used to feed growing young bees.

"This is a novel finding, and very striking. The implication is that the bees are sensing [pesticides] and actually sealing it off. They are recognising that something is wrong with the pollen and encapsulating it," said Jeff Pettis, an entomologist with the US Department of Agriculture. "Bees would not normally seal off pollen."

Bees are also sealing off pollen that contains substances used by beekeepers to control pests such as the varroa mite, another factor in the widespread decline of bee populations. These substances may also be harmful to bees, Pettis said. "Beekeepers - and I am one – need to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what we are doing," he said. "Certainly [the products] have effects on bees. It's a balancing act – if you do not control the parasite, bees die. If you control the parasite, bees will live but there are side-effects. This has to be managed."

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Adapting to a New World of Invisible Toxins

Huffington Post Health, Apr. 24, 2011

It's a whole new ballgame, folks. Nearly every community in the modern world is facing an invisible enemy. Constant exposures to toxic loads in our environment carry far more serious consequences than ever before. Survival of the fittest, when the best-suited mutations become dominant, may mean carefully rethinking your place in the modern world.
...
The environmental challenges we now face are exponentially far greater than at any time in my life. More than fourteen thousand synthetic chemicals and preservatives are now a part of our daily food. We are only guessing at the impact of genetically modifying our food and irradiation much as we did with cigarettes. Cell phones are another great "modern" experiment, unconsciously placing them next to our skulls for hours at a time. Body scanning devices in more than 60 US airports are common now, x-raying far more than our feet when we bought those new shoes. Cesium-137 is in our drinking water now; radioactive iodine-131 is in fish. The new symbol on food packages may very well soon be the familiar yellow triangle for radiation with a line through it, bragging "This food has no radioactivity."

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Prenatal pesticide exposure tied to lower IQ in children

Science Blog, Apr. 20, 2011

Berkeley — In a new study suggesting pesticides may be associated with the health and development of children, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health have found that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides — widely used on food crops — is related to lower intelligence scores at age 7.

The researchers found that every tenfold increase in measures of organophosphates detected during a mother’s pregnancy corresponded to a 5.5 point drop in overall IQ scores in the 7-year-olds.

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Exposure to organochloride pesticides affects semen quality

EurekAlert, Mar. 22, 2011

According to a study conducted at the University of Granada, combined exposure to organochlorides significantly alters semen quality in young people from South East Spain. Having a low number of spermatozoa taking the levels established by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a reference can delay fertilization.

The most common means of exposure to pesticides among the general population is through food and other household products. From the 18 pesticides found in the participants' blood, some are forbidden in Spain, as DDT, although others as the fungicide called vinclozolin –employed in vineyards and citrus groves– are legal in this country.

While exposure to certain organochlorides proved to increase total spermatic number and total sperm motility levels, other pesticides have the adverse effects and are associated to a reduction in these levels. This might be due to the fact that some pesticides are considered to be slightly estrogenic endocrine disruptors –as it is the case of endosulfan sulphate, lindane and p,p-DDT–, while others combine their clearly antiadrogenic activity to a weak estrogenic activity –as it is the case of p,p-DDE and vinclozolin.

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